HFU HF Underground
General Category => Huh? => Topic started by: Fansome on September 16, 2019, 0120 UTC
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Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Ric Ocasek, lead singer of the rock band The Cars, died Sunday in New York at age 75.
Police said they received a call around 4 p.m. for an unconscious male at a townhouse on East 19th Street. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Law enforcement sources confirmed the deceased was Ocasek.
Ocasek and his band were inducted into the Rock Hall in 2018. The institution described the band as "hook-savvy with the perfect combo of new wave and classic rock."
The band had 13 top-40 singles, including radio staples like "Good Times Roll" and "Just What I Needed," and Ocasek went on to a successful producing career after The Cars broke up in the late 1980s.
He was also known for his long-running marriage to the Czech supermodel Paulina Porizkova. She announced their separation in 2018 after 28 years of marriage.
They listed the 19th Street residence for sale earlier this year for more than $15 million.
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First Eddie Money and now Ric Ocasek. Who will be #3?
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Probably some guy who cut's and paste's celeb obits on bulletin boards.
I saw the Car's on their first tour. One, they had up and comers AC/DC and UFO on the bill with them, (They had to follow the snarling Bon Scott and AC/DC who'd taken the roof off the place) and two; they just had material from the first album. When it ran out, they pissed off an already angry crowd by trying to run through it again. The crowd, who had dubbed Ocasek "Plastic Man" for his weird outfit early in the show, began hurling anything they could get their hands on after he began insulting them more than he had earlier. I remember thinking, "They're going to kill this pack of Yankee's."
Some cops who had more guts than brains, surrounded the band and got them off the stage. I was a little ticked I was cheated out of a Yankee stomp, but it began my lifelong quest to figure out what's wrong with people from Boston.
The show was well worth the 4 bucks it cost... except for the Cars.
Al, Ocasek comes pre-jerked. He was a jerk forty years ago. I've got a few thousand people who will testify to it.
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He's up there rockin mullets with Ben Orr now.
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To this day I don't why the sound man didn't cut the power to the stage/PA system? These were the days of heavy glass liquor and beer bottles. There were several people up front sporting nasty head wounds from the noodle armed in the back.
Ocasek was foaming at the mouth mad. He wanted to go into the crowd and fight. Any male in that arena over fourteen would have cleaned his clock, he was skinny as a toothpick.
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Ocasek produced Rock For Light. He gets a lifetime pass.
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Nope, he was a sell-out. Band's like The Cars popularized the term "New Wave" which allowed radio stations and record stores to promote that "punk lite"sound pushed in the late 70's, like The Police and the Go-Go's when they should have been playing the Clash, The Jam, The Ramones and The DK's. "Holiday In Cambodia" would have surely been a #1 hit.
Damn you, Rick Ocasek! You too, Sting!
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Nope, he was a sell-out. Band's like The Cars popularized the term "New Wave" which allowed radio stations and record stores to promote that "punk lite"sound pushed in the late 70's, like The Police and the Go-Go's when they should have been playing the Clash, The Jam, The Ramones and The DK's. "Holiday In Cambodia" would have surely been a #1 hit.
Damn you, Rick Ocasek! You too, Sting!
Pretty sure that one charted in the UK. I recall Biafra talking about the DK's being a Top 40 band over there.
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I wonder if Gordon Sumner and Ric Ocasek ever combined their powers?
I too have heard the cars were dicks to fans and non fans alike, kinda like weezer is today. At least they're not nickleback.
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I must agree with Pigmeat. The Cars were weak at best.
FPE
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Nope, he was a sell-out. Band's like The Cars popularized the term "New Wave" which allowed radio stations and record stores to promote that "punk lite"sound pushed in the late 70's, like The Police and the Go-Go's when they should have been playing the Clash, The Jam, The Ramones and The DK's. "Holiday In Cambodia" would have surely been a #1 hit.
Damn you, Rick Ocasek! You too, Sting!
Pretty sure that one charted in the UK. I recall Biafra talking about the DK's being a Top 40 band over there.
Sorry Gents "Holiday in Cambodia" didn't make the charts here. Neither did "California Uber Alles" (what I would consider their other 'big hit').
DKs did have some chart success ... "Kill the Poor" reached 49 in the singles chart. "Too Drunk to F***" managed to make it to 36 for 1 week in the Top 40. Their first album "Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables" made 33 on the album chart with 3 weeks in the top 40 and got them a gold disc.
I guess Jello's claim about being a top-40 band in the UK is [just about justified by that 1 week for "Too Drunk ...".
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Let us bury Ol' Hatchet Face Ric and agree that Stiff Little Fingers is the greatest band to come off the Emerald Isle. Releasing "Suspect Device" as a single at the height of "The Troubles" must have had Ian Paisley crapping his pants. That band that Sonny Bono founded before he went face first into a tree couldn't touch them.
I always thought of SIL as the last "true" punk band. Everything following them was derivative.
Boy, I wish Paulina would have waited until the man was cold to start calling me? Her future sister wives are getting jealous. The Deal twins are a mean pair when riled.
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I will always have a warm spot in my heart for The Cars (pronounced Khars as in Khakis - they are from Boston you can hear it hear in their intro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj-b3fWrY3w), not for their ability but a matter of timing. Following my last undergraduate final exam (forty years ago this past May), I strolled back to my dorm. Upon opening the door to the sixth floor, the first chords of "Good Times Roll" began - and so they did.
That dorm was the Trump Tower of campus, from my sixth floor east facing window Lake Champlain/The Green Mountains (Camel's Hump/Mt. Mansfield) were visible and out the west facing Lounge windows the White Mountains (Whiteface Mountain) could be seen.
The Cars were one of several current "big name" acts to play our out of the way location in '78-'79, others included the Doobie Brothers, George Benson, Boston, David Bromberg, Aztec Two Step, and Livingston Taylor. Last I checked, I think they are all still touring ;)
Wait a second, I think City just scored again (for you MDK2) ;D
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It's funny how regional AOR stations in different parts of the country did their own thing in those days. I met a guy from Miami in 1980 who wanted to have me listen to "A new German band" Kraftwerk. I had to tell him he was about five years too late. You couldn't go anywhere in the Mid-Atlantic w/o hearing "Autobahn" four times an hour the summer of '75.
It was the same with Patti Smith in the Northeast and Great Lakes. The year after "Horses" was released, her version of "Gloria" was everywhere on the dial. (Patti had bigger cojones than Van and Jim Morrison combined.) If the bands got a lot of air play, the local promoters brought them in. A guy I was friend's with lost his shirt on the Police's first U.S. tour. He was still bitching about it the last time I saw him, about a decade ago.
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Let us bury Ol' Hatchet Face Ric and agree that Stiff Little Fingers is the greatest band to come off the Emerald Isle. Releasing "Suspect Device" as a single at the height of "The Troubles" must have had Ian Paisley crapping his pants. That band that Sonny Bono founded before he went face first into a tree couldn't touch them.
I always thought of SIL as the last "true" punk band. Everything following them was derivative.
Boy, I wish Paulina would have waited until the man was cold to start calling me? Her future sister wives are getting jealous. The Deal twins are a mean pair when riled.
I'm down with that. SLF is coming to my town soon, too. I saw them about 20 years ago. Think Henry Cluney had already bailed by that time, though.
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I've got a vintage SLF lapel button and the original UK pressing of their first album "Inflammable Material" on the Rough Trade label. What a great band! Have fun at the show!
Their bass player leaves and Bruce Foxton of The Jam falls into their laps. You don't get much luckier than that, IMO.
I understand the original line-up is back together. They won't be pogoing on the stage now, those guys are as old as I am, too tough on the joints.
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Never let a bass player touch you before a gig or the curse will be transferred to you and you'll have to play bass until someone else is dumb enough to touch you before a gig.
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But the bass players get all the young sweeties. Don't you remember when Bill Wyman dated a 13 year old and married her 6 years later?